AB de Villiers, Moeen Ali keep Royal Challengers Bangalore in the hunt

Royal Challengers Bangalore (218-6) beat table-toppers Sunrisers Hyderabad (204-3) by 14 runs on the back of a 107-run stand between AB de Villiers (69) and Moeen Ali (65) to keep themselves afloat in IPL 2018.

Batting first, Bangalore lost the wickets of openers Parthiv Patel (1) and Captain Virat Kohli (12) early. Kohli, after hitting a boundary off Rashid Khan (4-27-3) tried to be too adventurous as he failed execute a sweep shot. The ball went right under the bat and disturbed the timber.

The ship was then steadied by the champion batsman AB de Villiers and all-rounder Moeen Ali. While ABD meant business from ball one and smashed back to back boundaries of his first two balls, Moeen Ali was a bit watchful to begin with. However, once the left-hander got his eye in, there was onslaught from both ends.

AB de Villiers (69) and Moeen Ali (65) were part of a 107-run stand that gave RCB a solid platform. It were cameos from Colin de Grandhomme (40, SR: 235.29) and Sarfaraz Khan (22, SR: 275) that took RCB to a humongous total of 218.

AB de Villiers was given the Man of the Match ahead of Moeen Ali (2-21-1), who also contributed with the ball. Possibly it was ABD’s Superman-esque catch to dismiss Alex Hales at the boundary which tilted the result in his favour.